


I'll Take Care of You

by csiwholocked33



Category: The Fall (TV), The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Established Relationship, F/F, Femslash, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, cute af, femmeslash, fluffy af
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-03 17:51:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5300999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/csiwholocked33/pseuds/csiwholocked33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An impossibly idyllic AU in which FBI attaché Dr. Dana Scully shares a cute little London flat with her girlfriend, one DSI Stella Gibson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [talkwordytome](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talkwordytome/gifts).



> 1) the title comes from the heartbreakingly sweet Dixie Chicks song of the same name. ♥  
> 2) this fic is very very very heavy on the hurt/comfort and sick!fic tropes; this is because I love my girlfriend, that is her shit, and this is for her. *kissy face emoji* also, a special thanks to her for the beta-ing and the cuddling and the rest :) ♥  
> 3) If anyone thinks it's weird that I'm writing fictionalized Gillian D cuddling and flirting with and kissing fictionalized Gillian S, let me simply present for their consideration this proven fact: irl Gillian A ships it.*  
> *"[Stella and Scully] actually might make good life partners... I hadn't thought about that before. I wanna see someone doing an after dark sketch of Scully and Stella..." -Gillian Fucking Anderson, Fan Expo 2015 {https://youtu.be/MtTGOjz_wn4?t=14m37s}

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With one surreally elegant hand, Stella reached out and gently pet the small dormant being.
> 
> It stirred, but made no signs of consciousness. Stella patted it again, this time a little more vigorously.
> 
> "Mmmsmff?" said the lump.
> 
> "Do you know what time it is?" Stella said, bemused.
> 
> "Sleepy time?" Dana volunteered, her voice muffled from beneath the blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> approximate word count: 1.9k  
> rating: G  
> keywords/tags: friendly teasing ~ fluff ~ banter ~ domestic cuteness ~ established relationship ~ hurt/comfort ~ sickfic

When Stella got home, she found her little Scully curled up on the couch, apparently asleep. She found this a little odd—Dana was a total night owl—and approached the lump of fleece-covered FBI agent carefully.

With one surreally elegant hand, Stella reached out and gently pet the small dormant being.

It stirred, but made no signs of consciousness. Stella patted it again, this time a little more vigorously.

"Mmmsmff?" said the lump.

"Do you know what time it is?" Stella said, bemused.

"Sleepy time?" Dana volunteered, her voice muffled from beneath the blanket.

"If you're in primary school, perhaps." Stella sat down on the sofa beside her. "It's only just…” she glanced at her Cartier watch. “...8pm."

With a grumble, Dana uncovered her face and sat up slightly. "I told you Stells, I understand military time just fine; I've lived in London for over a year now. You don't have to Americanize for my benefit." Her voice was oddly weak-sounding, Stella noted.

"So if I'd said 'it's 22:00', you would've known that I’d meant 8pm?"

"Yes, of course!"

Stella smirked. She could be devilishly patient with these things.

As realization dawned on the still-groggy Dana, her angelic face twitched very slightly before reassuming its stoic mask. "Very funny. I know damn well that 22:00 isn't 8pm; I was half asleep, that wasn't fair."

"Of course, I'm sure that's all it was." Stella still hadn't let out even a half-giggle, which she considered quite the achievement.

“It is! I know that 8pm is–” the pause she took was brief enough that another would almost definitely have missed it, but Stella knew her speech patterns well enough to catch the momentary hesitation. “–20:00. I’m a doctor, for christ’s sake.”

“Though evidently not of mathematics,” Stella mumbled.

Dana glared up at her. Her nose was redder than usual and her eyes a duller, more watery shade of green.

Stella made to get up, but Dana pulled her back down with a surprisingly strong arm slung strategically around her waist at just the right moment.

"I thought you were irritated with me," Stella sighed.

Instead of giving a verbal answer {and in doing so admitting her defeat}, Dana flopped wordlessly over onto Stella's lap.

"Do you want something from me?"

“My head hurts.”

“How terrible, I do hope you’ll recover.” By this point Stella had absolutely figured out what was going on, but she wanted to hear Dana say it.

“My _everything_ hurts,” Scully whispered.

“If only we weren’t having this little spat, perhaps I could do something to—”

"Please?"

Her plea was so tiny and pathetic that Stella immediately lost all will to resist. She began rubbing soothing circles on the smaller woman’s back with one hand and combing through her silken red hair with the fingers of the other.

"Bad day?"

Dana murmured affirmatively.

Pulling their favorite throw over her girlfriend's prostrate body, Stella kissed her on the forehead and went on playing with her hair.

All at once the body under Stella's hand jerked thrice in succession, each motion accompanied by a little squeak.

"Dana?"

"Ye—chooo!"

"I take it you've finally caught that cold that's been going around?"

"No, I just—"

"—Enjoy sneezing into my new Vera Wang pencil skirt?"

Dana sneezed again.

"I'll take that as a yes."

Scully made a tiny "harrumph" sound but said nothing.

A few minutes passed in comfortable silence.

Then Dana sneezed again, and again, and—spoiler alert—yet again.

"Dana Scully, you are absolutely and without a doubt ill."

She wiped her nose and grumbled {adorably}.

"Do you always sneeze in quick sets of three?"

"I'mb not sick," Dana protested. She stared hotly up at Stella, eyes red and droopy but still piercing, at least right up until her somewhat convincing glare was interrupted by a sudden, violent cough.

Stella raised an eyebrow.

"okay... _maybe_ ," Dana conceded, barely a whisper.

"Maybe?"

"Yeah, mayb—tshchOO!"

"Dana."

"All right,  _fide_. Now pass me the goddamn tissues."

Stella smiled, smug. Looking up at her with a sniffle, Scully did not find the older blonde's condescending, self-satisfied expression at all cute {she did find it just a little bit sexy, but would rather die than admit it}. Stella handed her the nearest box of tissues, making a mental note to pop by Tesco later for some nicer lotion ones.

"Now," Stella began, her voice unusually soft. She placed her hand on top of Dana's. "I know I'm no doctor, but will you let me play nurse just a bit?"

Scully sniffled, crossing her arms like a petulant child. "No."

Stella rolled her eyes. "I'll take that as a hearty _yes thank you Stella, I love you so, Stella..._ "

Scully made a noncommittal snuffling noise and flopped back into her corner of the couch.

Patting her girlfriend fondly on the head, Stella made her way to the kitchenette. She paused thoughtfully, then opened a cabinet.

"Ginger? Echinacea?"

"Please?"

“Which?”

“Surprise me.” Dana sounded so pathetic that Stella can only just barely resist the urge to pop back into the living room to check on her. Upon hearing a sonic blast of a nose-blow, she decides she can no longer resist.

Dana, still curled in a fetal position, had begun to shiver. Stella's heart panged in a very un-Stella-like way. {what can she say? Dana Scully always brought out the sap in her.}. Gathering a selection of pillows and throws from their other pieces of furniture, Stella guides Dana into a more comfortable position and nestles her into a cocoon of blankets. The younger woman gratefully buries herself in the fleece and cotton, letting her tired eyes slip shut. Stella Gibson understands more than most the immense trust that Dana Scully is conveying with this simple gesture; in their particular lines of work—both of which require constant hyper-awareness and a keen proclivity for skepticism—this innocent sign of letting one's guard down means the world.

After the tea has boiled, Stella arranges a few biscuits {Jammy Dodgers; Dana's favorite} on a saucer. She brings them into the living room with a trio of small steaming mugs: one Ginger, one Echinacea, and one Throat Coat for good measure.

“You know, I’m quite a good nurse considering you’re such a finicky patient, my de—” Stella stops mid-word, realizing that Dana has actually fallen asleep in the fifteen minutes it took her to prepare the tea and biscuits. Setting the tray gently on a side table, Stella tucks the blankets up around Scully’s chin, brushes the hair from her forehead, and gives the pale skin there a tender kiss.

She turns off the overhead lights, flicks on a carefully placed pole lamp, and settles in a nearby armchair with the Daily Telegraph. She drinks the Echinacea and the Ginger, but leaves the Jammy Dodgers and the Throat Coat just in case.

~~~

After a few hours it is dark outside, and having skipped her usual evening laps today to take care of one pitiful girlfriend, Stella is quite ready to tuck in for the night. She has already read the whole of the daily paper, gone over a few case files, and turned down their bed when she returns to retrieve the aforementioned girlfriend from the sitting room.

Dana remains sound asleep, somehow still lying in the position she’d assumed hours ago upon dozing off, though her head has fallen adorably to the side and her left cheek is smushed against a strategically placed pillow. Stella chuckles and brushes her ginger hair off of her face. Scully doesn’t move.

“Scully, sweetheart?” Stella caresses her cheek more purposefully.

Still nothing.

“Dana?”

She stirs, grumbling.

“It’s bed time,” Stella says gently.

“G’nite,” Scully murmurs, her eyes still shut.

“No, honey; we need to move you into the bedroom so I can take care of you in the night.”

Scully groans pathetically, and Stella almost considers sleeping in the armchair so that the poor sick little woman won’t have to get up… _almost_.

“Dana, you’ll be much more comfortable if we get you into some pyjamas and into our nice warm bed, I promise…” She lifts off the topmost blanket and Scully whines, curling away from the newly introduced cold air. It is, quite frankly, adorable; but really, what of Dana Katharine Scully isn't?

“Come on, sleepy head.” Stella removes the rest of the blankets. The smaller woman has yet to open her eyes or make any movements short of crumpling further into the couch.

“Come on,” Stella repeats, a little louder but still gentle. Then she takes Dana’s hands and begins pulling her up off of the sofa. Scully very nearly loses her balance as she unsteadily assumes a semi-upright position, and Stella grabs her around the waist with a steadying arm.

She continues whispering reassurances as she leads her half-asleep girlfriend down the hallway, and when they reach the bedroom, she helps her sit down on the foot of the bed and goes to find Dana’s favorite sleep shirt.

She is turned away and half inside their closet when a tremendous sneeze makes her start, dropping the shirt.

“Dana?” She re-enters the bedroom to find her folded in half on the bed, both hands over her face. Her eyes, finally, are both open. Stella hands her a few tissues and tries not to giggle.

She pats Dana on the back, but that’s clearly not the best idea, because the sneezing immediately recommences.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Stella giggles a bit; she can’t help it.

“S’not… s’not funn—CHOO!”

Stella swallows her laughter and hands Scully a few more tissues.

“Okay, s’maybe s’a little funny,” Scully mumbles. Her eyes are closed again.

“Poor baby,” Stella says, and guides her into a standing position so that she can help strip off her work attire. Suit jacket, silk shell, slacks, hose, and bra all fall into a pile on the carpet. Stella has always sort of loved that Scully wears such practical, matronly under-garments; she herself will always be a lacy La Perla kind of girl, but on Dana, the simple cotton bikinis and soft tee shirt bras are somehow both endearing and alluring.

Having pulled the baggy tee shirt on over her girlfriend’s weakly outstretched arms, she lowers them and tugs the hem down past her waist. She feeds her a Tylenol and helps her to hold the water glass to her lips without spilling.

Still clutching a few balled-up tissues, Dana flops back and instinctively coils into her usual right-facing crescent-moon position. After a couple of minutes, the contents of her entire sinuses had drained into her right nostril, so she rolls over to face the other direction. By the time Stella has turned out the lights and climbed in beside her, Dana has already switched sides five more times.

"Here, sweetheart; let me help you." Stella nudges the miserable woman until she halfway sits up, arranges a few pillows in a wedge behind her, and nestles her back in. "You'll breathe better this way."

"B-but... but how will you cuddle me if I lay like this?"

Stella isn't one to "melt," but such a metaphor is really the only thing appropriate to the moment.

"Like this, my love." She stretches a protective arm over Scully's rib cage, nuzzling her head into the smaller woman's neck.

"Well... yeah, omkay," Dana sighs happily.

They're both asleep in minutes.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She kisses Dana softly on the forehead {partly to make things seem normal and partly as a way of gauging her temperature} and walks her to the door.
> 
> “Thanks for being reasonable, Stell.”
> 
> Stella masterfully swallows her bemused laughter and waves, watching as the other woman steps out of their apartment and walks off down the hallway towards the elevator.
> 
> “I give her six minutes,” Stella mutters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> approximate word count: 1.2k  
> rating: G  
> keywords/tags: sharing a bed ~ hurt/comfort ~ domestic cuteness ~ fluff ~ established relationship ~ sickfic ~ stubborn character

Around 3:00 {that's 3am, Scully dear}, Stella is awoken—a big deal considering she’s been known to sleep through literal shoot-outs in the building beside—by what she would swear, in her drowsy incoherence, could only be a disgruntled bear cub.

A quick look round confirms the sound is in fact emitting from an adorable baby ursid, specifically one of the genus _scully_ and the species _dana._

Scully never snores, at least not to Stella’s knowledge, so she can’t help but giggle at the small angelic body, its chest rising and falling, and a low growl issuing from its pink nose with every slow exhalation. Scully is normally an average-to-light sleeper, but it seems that pretending to be healthy and _completely "fide," Stella!_ all day at work must have exhausted her into a deeper slumber.

She turns Scully gently over onto her side, pressing up close behind her to be her big spoon. Unabashed in her sleepiness, she buries her face in the younger woman’s mussed hair. Dana Scully’s hair, while strawberry-blonde in color, always seems to smell of apple, and vaguely of cherry blossoms. Stella had been attracted to Dana from their first meeting, but it was getting close enough to get a whiff of her delicate feminine smell, so impeccably incongruent with her sharp pantsuits and stern demeanor, that had made Stella finally go in for a kiss.

Now, Stella kisses her shoulder, tucks the sheet back over it, and, the snoring abated, settles her head on the edge of Scully’s pillow.

~~~

When Stella rolls over a couple hours later, having remained in an uncharacteristically light sleep to make sure she’d be there if Scully needed her, she finds her shivering, even with the sheet and blanket up around her neck. Leaning carefully over her, towards Scully’s nightstand, Stella clicks their heated mattress pad up from 1 to 3. She knew she could never stand it set at anything above 2 for very long, especially not through the night, but Scully was almost always chilled and in the winter loved to turn it up to 4 and 5 when she was curled up in their bed reading in the evenings while Stella showered the chlorine from her hair.

In her sleep, Scully twists to face towards Stella. After a moment the mattress pad heats up, and her shivering slows. Stella studies the muscles of her cherubic face, every furrow gone soft in the complete peace of sleep. After a moment they tense, and Scully mumbles something like _Shtup, Mulber_ before lapsing back into placid dreamlessness. Stella caresses Dana’s sweet little face and places a protective arm over her as she too drifts back into sleep.

~~~

Stretching with a sleepy sigh, Stella rolls over and reaches out towards her girlfriend.

She reaches some more.

She reaches _even more_ until finally her hands feel the edge of the mattress and slip from under the blanket, and the shock of cold empty air—a symptom of the true tragedy, that being the lack of a warm and sleepy Dana by her side—twists her usually stoic features into a precious pout.

Stella opens one crystal blue eye.

“D-Dana?”

The lack of response worries her such that she opens the other eye, and after a moment more she even goes so far as to sit up in their bed. Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, she sees that it is only 6:00 and rolls her eyes. Stella dons her satin robe and slinks ever-so-quietly into the kitchen.

It is there that she finds one Dr. Dana Scully, fully pantsuit-ed and sleekly coiffed, but slumped pathetically against the counter as she watches the coffee pot drip.

“Dearest Dana; come back to bed.”

Scully jumps.

“God, Stella, you scared me, I…”

“Dana, you’re still sick, and it’s just a Saturday besides; you’re not going into work.”

“I’m perfectly healthy, I...”

Stella almost says something—but then Scully gives a punctual sneeze, proving her point before the words have even come to her—so she just crosses her arms and lifts an eyebrow.

“...perfectly healthy.” Dana finishes, sniffling.

Before Stella can stop her, Scully has put on her sensible heels and shouldered her purse and briefcase. Realizing that her best bet is to let her stubborn sweetheart come to the proper conclusion herself, Stella pours some of the coffee into her waiting travel mug.

She kisses Dana softly on the forehead {partly to make things seem normal and partly as a way of gauging her temperature} and walks her to the door.

“Thanks for being reasonable, Stell.”

Stella masterfully swallows her bemused laughter and waves, watching as the other woman steps out of their apartment and walks off down the hallway towards the elevator.

“I give her six minutes,” Stella mutters, and shuts and locks the door.

Out the windows of their third-story flat, the rain pours down. She takes a sip of her coffee—black, with three sugars—and settles on the couch. She’s not yet drained her cup when she hears the front door being unlocked and flung open. She checks her watch: to Dana's credit, she lasted an admirable  _nine_ minutes.

Arching over the back of the couch to look down the hallway, she sees a dripping, shivering, adorably pouty Scully shedding her soaked blazer. Sighing, the small woman tosses the blazer to the side, steps out of her ruined suede pumps, and out of habit smooths a hand through her hair. It comes back wet and cold, and she would swear Dana is almost crying as she stares, pained, at her dripping hand.

It’s time to step in, Stella decides; dignity be damned.

“Lovely out today, isn’t it?” She makes sure her tone is more loving than mocking, more soothing than riling, and Scully turns her watery celery eyes up to meet hers. She doesn’t speak, just makes an incredibly pitiable little whimpering sound, and Stella rushes to her and gathers her in her arms. “Let’s get you back in bed, sweetheart.”

With one arm around her waist and the other holding both of her shaking hands, Stella guides her down the hallway and into their room. She helps her strip out of her damp slacks, her silk shell, her panty-hose, her practical briefs and utilitarian bra, and simply hugs Dana close to her body for a minute, hoping to impart some of her own stored up body heat. Once she’s finally completely stopped shaking, Stella retrieves a fresh pair of cotton underwear and the giant Queen concert tee Dana likes to sleep in, and carefully helps her into them.

As they settle into bed, Stella thinks to grab the box of tissues from her nightstand, and not a moment too soon: following a particularly violent sneeze, she looks up to see Dana's eyes panicked and a hand clasped over her nose and mouth. Stella wordlessly hands her a few tissues.

Laying back among the heaped pillows, Stella beckons Scully in until the smaller woman acquiesces and curls up with her head against Stella’s chest. Gently brushing her fingers through Scully’s hair, Stella tells her she loves her by not saying _I told you so_ even once.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sudden bright lights.”
> 
> “Can cause sneezing?”
> 
> “Yes.”
> 
> “I don’t believe that.”
> 
> “They trigger a reflexive response; it’s called photoptarmosis.”
> 
> “Alright, now you’re just making it up as you go.”
> 
> “It’s colloquially known as sun-sneezing, more formally as Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome, and affects approximately 18-35% of the population.”
> 
> “Yes, yes, we know, you’re a medical doctor, for heaven’s sake, you ju–”
> 
> It was at this moment that Dana Scully, M.D., very purposefully tipped up the lampshade of the large pole lamp that sat just behind the couch, casting it’s light directly into one unsuspecting Stella Gibson’s face. 
> 
> She sneezed thrice, each one more violent than the preceding few.
> 
> “See?”
> 
> Stella was sneezing too rapidly to answer.
> 
> Dana grinned irrepressibly, smug.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> approximate word count: 1.5k  
> rating: G  
> keywords/tags: fluff ~ teasing ~ domestic cuteness ~ established relationship ~ sickfic ~ slight angst {with resolution!}

They were sitting on the couch watching telly _,_ every possible blanket draped over their entwined legs, when it happened: Scully coughed. She’d been sniffling and sneezing plenty, achy and congested, but this was the first documented cough. Stella gave her a _poor baby_ look, Dana answered with an _I’m fine_ glare, and then they respectively redirected their attention to the latest issue of _Vogue_ and a _Who Do You Think You Are?_ rerun.

Almost immediately, Scully coughed again.

Stella set down the magazine.

“Alright, love?”

Dana opened her mouth to answer, but ended up coughing instead.

Seeing that the other woman’s cup was empty, Stella turned to reach for her mug of tea, planning to offer it to Dana to soothe her tickling throat.

Instead, she sneezed.

Now it was Dana’s turn to look worried.

“Stella? Are you ok–” she broke off with another cough, which turned into four.

“I’m f… f… fahsch ** _ooo_**!”

“Well, that must be a British thing; I’ve never heard of the feeling ‘fashoo’ before...”

Stella raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow, and it would’ve very likely been very intimidating if she hadn’t also been scrunching up her entire body like she might be about to burst into flame.

“Stella?”

Stella sneezed again.

Dana laughed, but it came out more like a cough, and suddenly she was coughing again.

Sneeze.

Cough.

Shaky inhalation, sneeze.

Cough, cough.

“Dan–hep- _TS **SCH**_ **'o** o!”

Cough, slight chuckle, followed by–you guessed it!–a cough.

Having somewhat regained her composure, Dana plucked a few tissues and handed them to Stella, who had that pre-implosion look again.

“Stella, if you try to hold them in, they’ll only keep coming. Plus, you can really hurt your ears that way.”

“Bullshi–chssh!!!”

“It’s true. Trust me; I’m a medical doctor.”

“So you’ve said.”

After a few seconds, her shoulders visibly untensing, Stella took a deep breath and snatched the tissues from her girlfriend’s outstretched hand, indignant. She seemed to have the sneezing under control for the moment. Her face, however, remained red, and she was avoiding Dana’s gaze. _Could it be… Embarrassment?_ Dana marveled at the very thought. The word “embarrassed” wasn’t even in The Stella Gibson Lexicon.

“Sneezing is a perfectly normal physiological response to a number of things; respiratory illness, seasonal or object-specific allergies, unexpected particle inhalation, sudden bright lights…”

“I know tha–wait, what was that last one there?”

“Sudden bright lights.”

“Can cause sneezing?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“They trigger a reflexive response; it’s called photoptarmosis.”

“Alright, now you’re just making it up as you go.”

“It’s colloquially known as sun-sneezing, more formally as Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome, and affects approximately 18-35% of the population.”

“Yes, yes, we know, you’re a _medical doctor,_ for heaven’s sake, you ju–”

It was at this moment that Dana Scully, M.D., very purposefully tipped up the lampshade of the large pole lamp that sat just behind the couch, casting it’s light directly into one unsuspecting Stella Gibson’s face.

She sneezed thrice, each one more violent than the preceding few.

“See?”

Stella was sneezing too rapidly to answer.

Dana grinned irrepressibly, smug.

“Your sneezes are a bit loud,” Dana said, chuckling.

“They’re really not,” Stella whispered, and her face went red again.

“They really are,” Dana giggled.

“They’re _not!”_ Stella said, suddenly sharp, but then she sneezed again, and Dana knocked the lampshade back down.

Dana knew better than to grin or laugh when Stella was using that tone, the one she usually reserved for self-important local police officers and presumptuous strange men. “I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Stella mumbled something that Dana couldn’t hear.

“What was that?”

Stella drew the ball of tissues away from her face, looked at it scornfully, and tossed it carelessly over her shoulder.

“I _said,_ I _know_ they’re loud. They’ve always been.” She looked down at her magazine.

“Oh, Stell… it’s nothing to be self-conscious about. I was just teasing.”

Stella mumbled noncommittally.

“Really,” Dana insisted, now feeling a bit guilty about the whole lamp thing. She’d never seen Stella look so... wounded. The _bit guilty_ feeling was quickly swelling into a _cringe- inducing, soul-swallowing, uniquely Catholic super-guilt feeling._

_~~~_

When the pair sat down to dinner an hour later, Stella’s sneezing had more or less ceased, but she remained unusually sniffly.

“Oh Stell, I hope you’re not getting my cold,” Dana began, but she was promptly interrupted.

“I’m fine, Dana. Perfectly healthy. Right as rain.” Stella mugged unconvincingly, her tone overly chipper. It didn’t fool Dana for a second, but she pretended it did for her girlfriend’s sake.

“Okay,” Scully said, and returned to her risotto.

They munched in silence for a few minutes, the patter of rain on the window panes their background music.

“Do you really think my sneezes are that loud?”

The question came as a surprise to Scully, whose mind had drifted to thoughts of the cases she’d be returning to as soon as she was well again.

“No… no, of course I don’t.”

Stella didn’t look convinced. Her ordinarily piercing visage had gone soft and sad, and it was heartbreaking to behold.

“I really don’t. I’m sorry I even said that, that I pulled that bullshit with the lamp…” Dana reached across the table and covered Stella’s elegant, sedately polished hand with her own small rough one. “I’m so sorry, Stelly. Please forgive me?”

“Yeah, of course,” Stella said softly, digging around in the remnants of her plate of risotto with a fork.

Scully’s guilt was reaching a boiling point. She didn’t know what else to say, so she just gathered their dishes and took them into the kitchen to load the dishwasher. When she returned to the living room/dining room ten minutes later carrying two plates of Stella’s favorite Tesco coffee cake, she found the room empty.

Dana Scully wasn’t one for vulnerable emotions, was absolutely not one for frivolous displays of emotion like crying, but in that moment she felt near tears, consumed by the knowledge that she’d so carelessly upset the woman she loved for no good reason.

She returned to the kitchen and made two Hot Toddies, and by the time she was done the urge to weep had subsided, but it had been replaced by a desperate desire to apologize and apologize and apologize by way of treats and cuddles and kisses.

In their room, Stella was sat up under the covers in her favorite satin robe, flicking mindlessly through the channels.

“Stella, I really feel terrible… so I made you this.” Scully presented the Hot Toddy, followed by the coffee cake, which she had garnished with a chocolate kiss and some mint leaves fresh from their balcony herb garden. “Your sneezes aren’t loud; they’re charming, just like everything else about you.”

Smiling briefly, Stella took the plate and mug.

Satisfied with her damage control but still rippling with culpability, Dana went to the bathroom to go through her nighttime routine.

Teeth brushed, face washed, sleep shirt on, and eyes tired, Scully opened the door to their bedroom and found that the lights were already off. Stella was turned on her side, not the one she usually slept on, but so that she was facing away from Scully’s half of the bed. The guilt bubbled up again, but she wouldn’t dare disturb Stella when she was trying to get to sleep, so she silently crawled in beside her.

“My sneezes are quite loud, Dana.”

Scully was so surprised to hear her speak that she jumped a bit.

“What? No, I was just being stupid, they’re really–”

“They’re loud, Dana. I know it.”

Hearing the tremor in Stella’s voice, Scully turned over and sat up to get a better look at her girlfriend’s face… and found her smirking?

“My sneezes have always been loud, darling. I’ve just been taking the piss.”

For a half second Dana’s mouth made a perfect O, shocked–but then she remembered herself and transitioned quite seamlessly into a more dignified but no less cute sort of frustrated pouting.

“I was a bit insecure about it once so I’ll admit it hit in an odd spot when you first said it, but after the first apology that’d all been forgiven and forgotten… but you were just so sweet, with your little _kid-who-kicked-the-dog_ face and your edible peace offerings…” Stella drawled.

“Dammit, Stella,” Scully said, and flopped, dejected, back onto her side of the bed.

Stella giggled. Dana tried her very best not to smile.

“I love you,” Stella said.

“I love you too,” Dana answered, mock-exasperated.

Stella turned over and snuggled up behind her fussing girlfriend–surprisingly, there were few things the pragmatic and aloof Agent Scully loved more than a good spooning–and Dana immediately relented.

They had both closed their eyes, settled into the position and into their need to sleep, when suddenly Stella sneezed.

“Sorry you’re getting my cold.”

“S’alright,” Stella admitted, rubbing her nose, “S’more than worth it.” Wrapping an arm over her little spoon’s waist, she cuddled even closer into Scully’s back.


End file.
